Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Netflix | Release Date: November 4, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
22
Negative:
3
Watch Now
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Screen RantPatrice WitherspoonDec 22, 2022
The incomparable Daniel Giménez Cacho stars as Silverio Gama, giving an unforgettable performance that captures the intensity of the film’s concepts. While everything doesn’t always work in Bardo, Iñárritu takes his time painting a visually scrumptious tale even though it’s overly saturated with style over substance. Read full review
60
TimeStephanie ZacharekNov 21, 2022
The picture still meanders and drags, and sometimes Iñárritu’s lofty ideas come off like a hot-air balloon that deflates and gets stuck in the trees. You wish he could just move on with things already. And yet there are some magnificent visions in Bardo. Read full review
60
EmpireJohn NugentNov 15, 2022
Bardo sees director Alejandro González Iñárritu looking at the man in the (hall of) mirrors; the result is visually sensational but sometimes lethally patience-testing. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 1, 2022
Audiences’ staying power for this meandering existential exploration of personal, professional and national identity — as tragicomic as it is rueful — will vary, depending on their interest in the artist or their appetite for the film’s aesthetic beauty. Read full review
60
Total FilmJane CrowtherSep 1, 2022
Though ambitious and visually stunning (gorgeous cracked deserts, beautiful beaches, houses filled with sand), it’s willfully elusive and unwieldy to the point of frustrating. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 1, 2022
It is made with real panache – so much panache, in fact, that you can forgive much of the film’s outrageous narcissism. Iñárritu could, if he chose, tell us an equally painful but less grandiose and auto-mythic story about his own life – but he has exercised his prerogative as an artist and given us this confection instead. It is certainly spectacular. Read full review
58
The PlaylistJack KingSep 1, 2022
For all of the visual treats on display and for the moving moments that are better left unspoiled, nobody thought to withhold this director’s greater indulgences. And that is a shame — because when ‘Bardo’ hits the softer note it strives for, it’s really something to behold. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 1, 2022
With “Bardo,” Iñárritu delivers a cartoonishly indulgent film about the fact that he makes cartoonishly indulgent films — a rootless epic about a rootless man who’s been unmoored by his own self-doubt. Read full review
55
PolygonKatie RifeNov 18, 2022
A lot happens in Bardo, much of it surreal. Elaborate musical numbers, dream sequences, alternate histories, and chronological hiccups all factor into this sprawling, whimsical, personal film. But once the lights go up and the spell is broken, all that striking imagery ends up feeling remarkably empty. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 21, 2022
There are magical moments, and brilliant sequences tossed into this ensalada of a movie. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleTrace SauveurNov 16, 2022
It’s as immersive as it is insufferable. There’s greatness packed in there, but the most lasting impression is how much time is spent trying to convince you of it. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 9, 2022
Bardo seems to be Iñárritu’s deeply personal — if hermetic — attempt to make sense of the conflicting and unresolved impulses that have animated his life and art over the past two decades, during which he’s gone from promising emerging filmmaker to Oscar-winning superstar. Read full review
50
ColliderBrian FormoSep 2, 2022
Iñárritu has always been heavy-handed but his attempt to be airier creates more areas to bloat. And it gets incredibly unwieldy at points. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeNov 23, 2022
It is, very occasionally, brilliant: a deft reveal in the final 20 minutes ties together the disparate, seemingly unrelated scenes that came before. But with its overuse of fish-eye lenses and the quacking, whimsical brass-heavy score, it’s extremely hard work. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesTara BradyNov 18, 2022
Named for a Buddhist concept referencing the transition between birth and death, Bardo may transport the viewer to a dream space but not perhaps the one Iñárritu intended. Zzzzz. Read full review
40
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaNov 11, 2022
Bardo speaks the language of dreams, but it also speaks the language of explaining those dreams in the most boring and literal ways. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithNov 4, 2022
As the film floats on, drifting from one extravagantly engineered reverie to another, the filmmaker only occasionally succeeds in making the audience feel his sorrow, regret and alienation. More often, his flights of fancy are merely exasperating. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 4, 2022
Iñárritu has a flair for the cinematic, for bold and striking images, but he is not an experimental filmmaker. He doesn’t have that kind of deft touch, that willingness to throw ideas at the wall, see what sticks, and — most importantly — move on. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 3, 2022
Iñárritu, rather than answering them or leaving them provocatively unanswered (either one would be fine), does what he seems to do with most of his stories and ideas nowadays: He flings them around, roughs them up and rearranges them into an imposing, finally insufferable monument to his own awesomeness. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 1, 2022
Iñárritu has cooked up a personal epic of the most exhaustingly swaggery type, man-spread across three hours of screen time during which flashes of genuine, startling brilliance occasionally manage to push their way through the strenuously zany macho-visionary fug. Read full review
40
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 1, 2022
So why is “Bardo,” for all its skill, reach-for-the-stars aspiration, and majestic sweep, such a windy, confounding, and — okay, I’ll just say it — monotonous experience? The movie is full of good things, but it’s three hours long and mostly it’s full of itself. Read full review
40
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 1, 2022
Iñárritu has a lot on his mind here, weighing the sins and graces of personal and public history, and attempting to atone for some of it. But as Bardo stretches on and on and on, the film narrows into something solipsistic and meta. Read full review
More From This Movie

55 Critic Reviews

6.9 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 77 Project Hail Mary
2 75 Send Help
3 73 Hoppers
4 72 The Sheep Detectives
5 68 Crime 101
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL